What we’re reading: “Swimming to Antarctica” by Lynne Cox

Cox is a cold-water, long-distance swimmer. That might make you think English Channel and you’d be right. The Channel, however, might be the easiest thing Cox does and she does it as a teenager. Oh yeah, and she breaks the record the first time she swims it.

Cox then does one amazing swim after another. The story is all told with extreme modesty for someone who ends up doing so many things that no one has done before. Not only have they not done them, but most people think they can’t be done. Cox swims across the Bering Straight, from an island off Alaska to an island off the coast of Sibera. The Inuit who fish the waters there often don’t bother learning to swim because most people wouldn’t live for long if they fell in the water anyway. Cox does the swim in just a bathing suit and goggles.

I loved this book and did not want it to end. I picked it up on a whim and enjoyed it thoroughly.